Your Mail 1-12-14: Media's bias is shabby ... We're 'weather wimps'

Media's bias is shabby

It is significant that the media has gone wild over the New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie incident where one of his underlings caused a traffic jam on a busy bridge. The media has reported this morsel of "news" over and over. Christie's denial of having participated in this traffic jam has only intensified the media's attempt to link him although they have no evidence to support their claims. The person who was responsible has been fired.

The significance is glaring in the face of the media's handling of Fast and Furious, a Justice Department program to sell guns to Mexican drug lords in violation of federal law. The operation was kept quiet until a border guard was killed with two of those guns.

The National Security spying on phone calls and emails from the citizens of the United States was also swept under the rug even though the program violated the law.

The Internal Revenue Service being used to intimidate donors to the GOP has been handled in a similar manner. Appointing an employee of the IRS who made significant donations to the Obama campaign smacks of appointing a fox to guard the henhouse. The public should not expect to hear the results of that ongoing "investigation."

The lid was clamped on Benghazi, Libya, in the same way, and Congress has been rebuffed in attempts to secure documents surrounding the death of our ambassador and three other Americans. After all, to quote Hillary Clinton, "What difference does it make?" In all of these incidents no one has been fired. The few who were suspended have been returned to duty without any punishment.

The selective reporting of the media which castigates Republicans, but applauds Democrats (even those who openly disregard the law), only further erodes the little confidence in the media which might possibly exist.

The double standard of the media today makes it virtually impossible for the public to know any facts, or to know how public figures are performing their duties.

Most of what we see as "news" is little more than journalistic opinion without supporting facts.

Francis Elliott

Pineville

We're 'weather wimps'

I enjoyed the article about Americans turning into a bunch of "weather wimps." How true and how un-surprising. We're fourth-generation couch potatoes with remotes in one hand and burgers in the other.

Most of us think we know what it's like outside because we watch The Weather Channel, which started as a pleasant radar sweep with some background music back in the day, and has turned into Scare Central by naming every "rain event," inventing language and keeping us in a state of high anxiety - even when it's a gorgeous day.

Yes, we are a bunch of wimps.

Ben Darden

Leesville

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